


In My Contract

by x_los



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, BDSM, Collars, Contracts, Dom!Blake, M/M, Marriage Contracts, Negotiations, Sub!Avon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-13 23:16:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7142210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle over Blake and Avon's contract terms lasted four days, and eventually resulted in a fifty page document.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Contract

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by elviaprose

It had gone on so long and so obviously without anything coming of it that no one was sure anymore whether it was actually happening. Perhaps the two of them had discussed it and decided against. Perhaps it was all some tactical move on Avon’s part. Perhaps Avon was just _like this_. Perhaps the way the very-much unclaimed sub pushed Blake, challenged his authority, invaded his personal space and flaunted his physical and mental assets at any given opportunity (pairing all this provocative display with sharp-tongued ‘oh don’t you wish’ defenses that seemed to have been put up to be lavishly torn down) had nothing at all to do with seduction. It might have no connection whatsoever with the fact that Blake, totally occupied by rebellion though he was and irresponsible as he thought it would be to get seriously involved with a sub right now (something that would demand, if done with proper respect for the sub in question, a _hell_ of a lot of his attention and commitment), was the sort of natural dom subs and switches who’d only just met him tripped over themselves to obey. The sort of natural dom that made even Avon, a sub of the highest difficulty setting, interested in and manageable by only the most competent doms, grudgingly impressed despite himself.

So the crew of the Liberator was both surprised and what-took-you-so-long exasperated when, on an ordinary morning, Blake found Avon on the flight deck working on Orac and set a collar down on top of the computer.

Avon, sitting on the couch, blinked at the object. He put down his laser probe, took up the collar and investigated it slowly. Fine—expensive. (Representing, then, a little dip into Blake’s precious funds-earmarked-for-the-Revolution.) Clearly picked up at a good shop on the last planet they’d had shore leave on. Not a temporary session collar—the real thing. Heavy, cushioned leather, with one thick silver ring in front. Avon couldn’t quite keep the smirk of triumph off his face.

Cally, working at a console with Vila, caught sight of the exchange. She nudged Vila to draw his attention to it, and then nudged him harder, actually jabbing him in the stomach with her elbow to shut him up when he started to say ‘well would you look at that!’ Still, she beamed, pleased the matter was being settled at last.

“Have it your way,” Blake said, a hint of amusement in his voice. He sat down on the couch casually, as if the day were ordinary.

“Yours, surely,” Avon said, not quite demurely. He put the collar back down on the computer, releasing it with a decided gesture that drew attention to itself—as though he were reluctant to do so. “You are offering—what, exactly?”

“Oh, everything, I should think,” Blake said evenly, regarding Avon simultaneously intently and with a certain lounging, relaxed confidence. “We’ll have to work out terms, naturally.”

“A permanent contract?” Avon asked, in part to be quite, quite clear on this, and in part just to hear Blake say it.

“A permanent contract,” Blake repeated obligingly. “Provided you’re interested, of course.”

“I might be,” Avon said, leaning back and grinning at Blake.

“You want to be convinced?” Blake asked, half a laugh in his voice. “I think I can manage that. Come here, Avon.”

Avon raised a challenging eyebrow.

“ _Avon_ ,” Blake repeated, giving the word an edge of remonstration and intensity.

Slowly, as if drawn on by a tight cord, Avon leaned over. He slid along the couch towards Blake, managing to make it look fairly graceful and _not_ to finish stooped over in half a crawl.

“Good,” Blake said approvingly, wrapping a hand around the back of Avon’s head and lowering his mouth to kiss Avon soundly. In the background, Vila whistled. Blake and Avon ignored him, but Cally smacked his arm, hissing that it was just a kiss.

Avon struggled at first, bringing his hands up to clench in Blake’s jacket, his body stiff and tense as Blake held him still. But after a moment he dropped quite limp, letting Blake support him almost tenderly. Eventually, Blake pushed Avon back, sliding a hand down to cradle Avon’s shoulders and keep him close. Released from the kiss (if not from Blake's hold), Avon breathed rather heavily. His eyes were half-lidded, but that couldn’t disguise that they were also very bright.

“Interested?” Blake repeated with a slightly harder edge.

Avon managed to smirk at him. “Perhaps I require a more thorough demonstration.”

“Perhaps you’ll get one after you sign the contract,” Blake answered reasonably, squeezing Avon’s shoulder with proprietary fondness. “If I’m in a good mood.”

“After we’ve settled our inevitably fraught contract negotiation, when you realize that at last, you’ve won?” Avon chuckled. “Oh, I very much suspect you will be.”

***

Contracts were often done for the form of the thing. People used standard wording they didn’t take all that seriously. This boilerplate language was usually the stuff of unconsidered custom, general and generic. Contracts slid easily into legalese if you didn’t craft them yourself, and almost no one did. They were a matter for couples rather than the state, but living immersed in Federation bureaucracy controlled the general tone of citizens’ behavior to the extent that people treated their contracts rather like they did their co-habitation request forms and the class-clearances they submitted for job postings. Most people signed their names on the dotted line, and thought no more of what they were signing.

Blake and Avon, however, argued as if more than their own lives depended on getting this right. They went at it hammer and tongs: the rest of the crew could hear snatches of tense, grave discussion (and, louder, the two of them occasionally shouting at one another) from behind the closed doors of their meeting room. (Also known as ‘the room with the good dinner table’, which they’d commandeered and covered with papers for days running now. Insensitive, Vila called it. He hated eating with a tray balanced on his knees, he always spilled something if there was the slightest turbulence.)

When people _were_ going about the thing properly, even for a permanent contract such as this, a three-hour negotiation period was considered a long, tense run. The battle over Blake and Avon’s terms lasted an almost unprecedented four days (and was thus the stuff of very, very specialist fetish porn). Blake didn’t seem that surprised by this turn of events, and even appeared to have planned for it—he’d popped the collar in the middle of empty space, having waited for time and opportunity to do so with minimal interruptions.

“How long are we going to drift out here on the edge of nowhere?” Vila asked when he ran into Avon, en route to his own bedroom. Avon was tired after a late night of talking through how the contract would and wouldn’t affect he and Blake’s work and public life, and looked it. “Anyone would think you were signing some interplanetary accord!” Vila complained.

Avon blinked at him. “I’ve no idea why you think my surrender _wouldn’t_ qualify as a major treaty.”

He or Blake occasionally stumbled out of their meeting room like boxers retreating to their corners, either charged and invigorated or spent. One of them would emerge, gulp down a beverage in the attached kitchen, say something hard to follow about what section of the outline they were on to whoever they found there, and plunge back in, gimlet-eyed.

“All this and you don't even know if the sex will _work!_ ” Jenna said, exasperated, to the two of them when they staggered out in tandem to grab something to eat. “You’ve never even done a scene together!”

“It'll work,” they answered her at the same moment, their voices flat and free of doubt. Jenna rolled her eyes and left them to making their dinner. They had always been able to move from shouting at one another to closely talking through a problem or to quietly working together, anticipating each other at every step, with surprising grace. Blake pulled out soup noodles and showed the packet to Avon with a speculative look. Avon shrugged acquiescence and popped slices of bread in the toaster, fetching some butter while they browned.

“Shall I cut them into soldiers for you?” Avon said dryly, pointing at the toaster with his butter knife—a crack about the accusation he’d made, an hour ago, that Blake was being childish in not wanting to specify mortality arrangements.

“Yes please,” Blake said primly, taking the hit on the chin and, when the soup was done and the tea poured, eating his soldiers with perfect composure.

What Jenna had said was true enough. They hadn’t ever done more than kiss, just that long-awaited once. (People did, after a proposal—it would have been strange _not_ to.) They’d both understood, without discussion and from almost the very beginning, that it would have to be all or nothing with them. That they couldn’t submit to or dominate one another without something profound and irrevocable occurring, and that they were holding out for that level of commitment from each other. Negotiating all this while, without ever specifically citing this as the end goal. The contract was in many ways just a very elaborate formalization of a harder-won status quo.

Avon looked puzzled.

“What is it?” Blake asked, leaning back to flick the kettle on—they’d both finished their tea and would thus need more.

Avon shook his head. “It’s quite an odd thing to say—‘all this, and you don't even know if the sex will work’. After all, what is unsexual about _negotiating the contract?_ Surely it serves as an adequate preview.”

Blake shrugged. “Beats me. I’ve always thought a ketubah rather romantic, myself. I suppose that’s why we’re getting contracted to one another, rather than you going off with Jenna.”

“That is the major reason, yes,” Avon agreed with a slight smirk. “Otherwise, well. She _is_ the more handsome dom, in the conventional sense.”

“I’ll only make you pay for that later,” Blake said, allowing a distinct note of flirtation to enter his voice.

“Promises, promises,” Avon said idly, leaning back to display his still-uncollared neck slightly more prominently and grinning when he caught Blake staring. “Shouldn’t you keep your mind on your interests?”

“I am,” Blake said fairly.

“I _mean_ ,” Avon said, liking that, “on the business at hand.”

“I thought you wanted a break.”

“I’ve had one.”

“All right then,” Blake went with it. “About your morbid contingency plans—”

Avon smiled brilliantly. “Yes, I’ve been looking forward to getting to this part of the outline.”

“Five hundred _million_ credits' widowed submissive’s allowance?” Blake scoffed. “You're either joking or mad.”

“It will keep you,” Avon said sweetly, “very, very keen on staying alive, won't it?”

“ _That_ isn’t even the basic problem with it. You can't extract money from a corpse,” Blake argued. “Even you.”

“No,” Avon admitted. “But I promise you I will find a way to make you regret dying on me, and that your having done it won’t stop me.”

Blake groaned and set about talking Avon down.

***

Provisions for safe words and articles governing the risk of life (their own and one another’s) by either party. A constitution dictating the terms under which revisions and amendments would be made. A five bullet-point policy on breath-play (they weren’t particularly interested in trying it, so that element could afford to be brief). Fifiteen pages after that, the extensive best and worst-case ‘acceptable parameters for life after the war’ section, with room for adaptation as circumstances changed. It was almost done. Their elegant, firm, fifty-page contact outlining their rights and responsibilities in relation to one another was nearly _perfect_.

But Avon was still holding out on a few points. There were matters he thought he could win on, if he could keep this up until Blake was just an _inch_ more tired and frustrated. He was also not quite willing to let the ketubah go. He’d derived a keen pleasure from making it with Blake. From being told, again and again with every carefully unfolded contention and every tense battle, that this was important to Blake. That Blake took him precisely this seriously. That what they were constructing was vital and sacred to him, too. They’d breezed, businesslike, through revealing, exhilarating disclosures, as though a spontaneously-given ‘always tell me when you’re in pain, of any kind, before you reach the safe word threshold, so that I can determine whether what we’re doing is truly working for you and act accordingly—be especially generous with me early on, as I learn you’ wasn’t a more faithful declaration of love than the words themselves.

By the afternoon of the fourth day, Blake looked like a music box winding down sounded. Avon sensed his own victory on his final agenda items was imminent. It made him over-confident. That, he ruefully thought afterwards, had been his downfall.

“Why not allow me certain privileges? After all,” he gave Blake a sarcastic smile, “I am a precious creature that needs to be protected.”

Blake blinked as though he’d figured something out. He seemed, as he often did, to pull a kind of focused power into himself out of nowhere. Avon always found this attractive, but today he also found it distinctly worrying.

“Mm,” Blake agreed, surveying Avon with a sharper interest from where he sat (Avon stood, his arms crossed over his chest). “Yes, you are. Special, delicate— _very_ worth protecting.”

Avon—tensed, slightly. All of a sudden the ridiculous comment wasn’t quite a joke. Blake continued to look at him, and his gaze alone rested heavy on Avon, weighted and proprietary. Avon had felt on edge for the duration of these negotiations, which had demanded his energy and passion, and had been so interestingly cathected. So it was difficult for him to break away from Blake’s intent look.

“Go on,” Blake said, his voice low and encouraging, almost coaxing—as though Avon were something that needed to be or could be coaxed. “Take the maintenance terms. You’re going to be my submissive soon, aren’t you? And while I don’t feel the need to specify that I’ll try and give you everything it’s within my power to give you (bearing the limits of our situation in mind), if you’d feel more secure with it _said_ , then I want you to feel secure.”

He reached out and laid a hand on Avon’s arm, rubbing it idly. He kept the touch slight. It was only a degree more romantic than the ways they made physical contact in the course of ordinary work. Blake often caught his attention with a gesture much like this. The caress of his hand on Avon’s jacket transmitted itself only diffusely to Avon’s skin, as it dragged the shirt worn underneath his jacket against it. But the repetitive touch, soft as it was, had a curiously mesmeric effect. Avon felt his composure weaken a little in response.

He wanted Blake to stop, though the sensation was pleasant. Or he wanted more of it—wanted Blake dragging his hands over the fabric of just the shirt. Taking his time. And then telling Avon to take the shirt off, too. And then stroking him directly, luxuriating in the pleasure of skin against skin, of touch almost for its own sake: of running his hands, over and again, down Avon’s arms, across his back. Stoking until Avon felt the touch (and he knew he was starving for that contact—for Blake to warm and possess every part of him) not purely as a sensual fulfillment, but also as a tease. Until, without even really considering it, he slid his legs open a little and started to move his hips in slight circles and thought about (Reluctantly? Or perhaps—openly. This was Blake, and Blake—was going to own him. Very, very soon.) asking for more, please. When he’d managed to overcome his resistance to doing so, Blake would demand more still. Would patiently tell him to say exactly what it was he wanted, moving his hands with slow satisfaction, as though he could do this to Avon all day.

Only the slight hitch in Blake’s breath when Avon squirmed, aroused and irritated and increasingly greedy, would tell Avon different. And if Avon heard _that_ , he could make a meal of his request. He could feel his own power, could luxuriate in the performance, could moan and beg to get Blake’s attention, and receive a slap on his arse for his insincerity. Another and another, on skin sensitized to caresses, but glutted with and still hungry for sensation, until he didn’t remember detachment and insincerity, and the moans and the pleading were terribly real, were all he was capable of. And Blake would tell him _that_ was better, that _now_ he was being good for him. Avon would nod weakly and say ‘thank you’ when Blake started to prepare his still-warm arse, and would _mean_ his thanks.

But none of that was happening—yet. Here and now, they were attempting to close the deal, and Avon was holding out for—well, he was sure he’d remember what for in a moment, after a tea break. Except Blake was looking at him like he knew just what was in Avon’s mind. And he was still ‘innocently’ touching Avon’s arm.

Avon wrenched it away and used it to write down the maintenance terms Blake had just agreed to, glowering at his partner-apparent. Thus far neither of them had used the promise of sex to pressure the other. They’d respected how long they had wanted this, how charged the negotiations already were, and how important it was to both of them to see this through. But now that they were down to the dregs, it seemed Blake was tired of waiting. Avon _did_ ache to sub for him. He was so _very_ ready to fall into a scene—and Blake knew it. But the minute they broke negotiations to do _that_ , the contract was set.

Be strong, Avon told himself. Prenups are _everything_.

“We’ll never be done here, you know,” Blake said, recapturing Avon’s unresisting hand and bringing it to his mouth. He kissed the knuckles, one after another, along the row. Started back when he’d finished.

“No?” Avon managed, thinking about how he’d like to suck Blake’s fingers until Blake groaned ‘ _that’s_ it, Avon, such a _clever_ little—’ _Stop that_ , Avon told himself, _stop that this instant!_

“Leave it a little messy,” Blake advised, the register of his voice implying something filthier than an unfinished contract. “Leave us something still to do. That way we can revise it occasionally. Would you like that?” Blake pulled Avon closer. “I think you would, Av’n. I know _I_ would. We’ll take it out at least once a year, on the anniversary.” Blake reeled Avon onto his lap. “Make sure the terms are up to date—give it a very,” he licked the shell of Avon’s ear, “ _thorough_ going over.”

Avon made a strangled noise as Blake nuzzled his neck. “I have some final—”

“Anything _important?_ ” Blake asked, letting Avon feel his burgeoning erection.

“…perhaps not as important as that,” Avon admitted.

Blake laughed a little, the huff of breath from in sliding across Avon’s skin, making him shiver.

“My Avon,” Blake said, sounding so smug that Avon wanted both to smack him and to suck him off—it really was too bad the two activities couldn’t be gracefully combined. “Go and get your collar for me.”

Avon thought he might have made an embarrassing, stifled noise in response to the command. Collaring for a scene (and, in a case like theirs, forever after), rather than signatures, sealed a contract such as this. Avon had been keeping the collar in his room, unworn, since the proposal. All the wanting and waiting, and here it was: his at last. He’d not let himself try it on, but he’d certainly toyed with it, alone after a day of negotiations. Tested the heft of his future in his hands.

“Let me put it on you,” Blake murmured, and Avon breathed hard. Swallowed.

“All right,” Avon said, quiet and serious, standing.

“Bring it to my room,” Blake said, standing and squeezing Avon’s shoulder.

Avon nodded, jerkily, and turned to go.

“Before we do this,” Blake said, arresting his progress, “and because I haven’t said it yet—I love you.”

Enough to enter into a relationship when he thought it was unwise to do so, given the pressures on them both, because he wanted Avon with a fervor that made all his reasonable objections seem, ultimately, minor and irrelevant. Enough to spend four days negotiating an absolute contract with a man who might be the most challenging, contrary submissive in the Federated worlds—who might _well_ have been impossible to control, for any dom but him. Enough to plan, in detail, a future he didn’t know whether he’d live to see with Avon, because he thought Avon certainly deserved one. (If, in the end, it turned out that Blake couldn’t give that to him, he could at least make Avon feel how much he’d _wanted_ to. But something about planning it had given Blake a degree of hope he never normally felt for himself. What they could have together had grown clearer and more defined with every settled item, and Blake was now determined to live the contract out.)

“Yes,” Avon said, passing his reply off as nonchalant, “I know.”

And he did. He had it in four days and fifty pages, and in months and months of Blake’s conversation and jokes and sulks and soup noodle packets (Blake knew the kind he liked) besides. Blake loved him. He believed it, and it would have seen him through getting not a one of his desired contract provisions. It would have set him up through anything.

“You aren’t going to say it back?” Blake asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Why should I?” Avon asked, tilting his chin up with a hint of defiance. “Obviously, you are perfectly aware of the fact. Besides, I had better give you something to start with in bed—you always require some object to aim at.”

“And you intend to put up a grand resistance?” Blake said, sounding not at all put off by this.

Avon smiled. “Don’t I always?”

“Yes,” Blake agreed, “it’s quite a sweet gift, in its way. Your ‘grand resistance’, I mean.”

Avon gave him a sour look, picked their fifty-page contract off the table and shook it at the man who would very soon be his dominant. “Don’t make me change my mind, after all this.”

In his room, Avon exchanged the contract for the collar in the drawer with a hand that trembled just slightly.

They often had cause to get it out again to refer to its guidelines, and within a few months both he and Blake found they knew the contract cold. Still, Avon liked to look at the document sometimes, for reassurance, for a measure of erotic satisfaction, and as an object in and of itself. There was something consecrated about the contract: not in the paper and ink, precisely, but in what it represented to him. And for the rest of his surprisingly long, well-negotiated and thus surprisingly happy life, Avon looked forward to his and Blake’s Annual Revision Day with eager anticipation. 


End file.
